A large-scale tsunami response exercise will take place in the Caribbean on 25 March. The purpose of this exercise is to test the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions, established in 2005 under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO). It is designed to evaluate the response capacity of Caribbean countries and adjacent regions* in the event of a dangerous tsunami.
The organizers** of the test have prepared two scenarii.

Working environment The intensification of several humanitarian crises in Africa and in the Middle East is keeping global resettlement needs high. Thanks to the generosity of countries such as the United States and Canada, which have large resettlement programmes, many vulnerable refugees are able to find a solution to their plight.

Washington/Nairobi, 24 September 2009
-The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the
most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel
of Climate Change (IPCC).

An analysis of the very latest, peer-reviewed
science indicates that many predictions at the upper end of the IPCC's
forecasts are becoming ever more likely.

Meanwhile, the newly emerging science
points to some events thought likely to occur in longer-term time horizons,
as already happening or set to happen far sooner than had previously …

This situation report is based on information
received from, the UN Emergency Technical Team (UNETT) in the affected
countries, the Regional Office in Panama and the National Hurricane Centre.
This situation report covers the effects of storms and Hurricanes "Gustav",
"Ike" and "Omar" in the Caribbean.

HIGHLIGHTS

- The Emergency Relief Coordinator, John
Holmes, will visit Haiti on 23-24 October to review the response to the
humanitarian crisis caused by the storms and hurricanes that hit the country.

Intense hurricane Omar struck the Virgin
Islands as a hurricane at about 01:00 GMT on 16 October. Data supplied
by the US National Hurricane Center suggest that the point of landfall
was near 16.9 N, 65.0 W. Omar brought 1-minute maximum sustained winds
to the region of around 148 km/h (92 mph). Wind gusts in the area may have
been considerably higher.